Uptown mansion owners sue to stop nearby public school from adding gym: ‘There is definitely a race and class issue here’

Melanie Velez poses for a portrait with her two children Alejandro Ortiz, 10, and Adelina Diaz, 3, outside their school, McCutcheon Elementary, in Chicago on May 16, 2019. Because the school does not have a gym, the children walk to the nearby Boys and Girls Club. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)

At the west end of Castlewood Terrace, a string of brightly dressed children follows a woman along the sidewalk, from the Boys and Girls Club to McCutcheon Elementary School. They line up outside a red door, next to a multicolored map of the United States painted over black pavement. They are skipping and laughing on this sunny May afternoon.

But on the cold days, when the young students put on their heavy coats and march down the block to use a rented gym, school volunteer P.C. Gooden Smiley sees them shivering and feels it is not right.

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“It has always hurt my heart,” said Smiley, who has lived in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood more than two decades and is on McCutcheon’s local school council.

Without a gymnasium of their own, generations of McCutcheon students have walked down the block and back to take physical education at the Pedersen-McCormick Boys and Girls Club. Now the school at 4865 North Sheridan Road has finally secured $10 million from Chicago Public Schools for a gym but another obstacle has emerged: residents of a nearby row of large, historic homes who have filed a lawsuit to stop the project.

“There is definitely a race and a class issue going on here,” said Gwyn Kram, who led the push for a gym during her two years as McCutcheon’s principal before leaving the school last year. “I feel I would be doing an injustice to my (former) students if I didn’t name it for what it was.”

Opponents of the gym say it’s about other issues, citing concerns ranging from public safety to the character of their Castlewood Terrace neighborhood — a leafy enclave that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009 and where stately homes routinely sell in the $1 million range.

Ed Kuske, president of the 32-home Castlewood Terrace Association, says the gym is unnecessary, fiscally irresponsible, a public safety risk and a danger to the character of the neighborhood and its historic designation.

His group filed suit in March against Chicago’s Public Building Commission, which manages public construction projects in the city. The association is seeking a judge’s order to stop construction of the proposed annex, arguing it would violate a setback restriction written into a century-old land covenant.

“If the Public Building Commission is permitted to carry out the proposed annex construction project, irreparable harm will be caused to each owner of real estate on Castlewood Terrace,” the complaint states. “The covenants and restrictions will be violated on an ongoing basis and the character and quality of life for homeowners on Castlewood Terrace will be negatively impacted.”

Though situated just feet from the relative wealth of Castlewood Terrace, McCutcheon is considerably more modest and diverse: As of last year, more than 90% of its student body was low-income, and about the same percentage was nonwhite, according to the school’s 2018 school report card. More than 16% of students were homeless, and a quarter had a disability.

But Kuske strongly took issue with the notion that the disagreement has anything to do with race and class. He said Castlewood Terrace residents have always been supportive of the school and that some volunteer there.

“We support the gym if it doesn’t take away our property rights. If it was a race issue or something else, why would we be doing that?” he said. “Can’t you have different opinions on what’s the right project for the school without calling names? That never crossed anybody’s mind. … It’s a ridiculous claim.”

The lawsuit targets construction on the south side, where the Castlewood rules apply, and Kuske said the neighborhood could live with a gym on the north side of the school, which is currently a parking lot for school employees. Castlewood neighbors have offered to designate parking spots on the crowded street for the employees, he said.

“We have a special place. … Why destroy a historic district?” Kuske said.

Citing the pending lawsuit, a Public Building Commission spokesman, Bryant Payne, declined to comment on the plans and would not say whether the addition is being eyed for the north or south side of the school.

In an interview with the Tribune at his ward office about half a mile from the school, Cappleman said he was surprised at the level of resistance to what he sees as a necessity for the children who attend McCutcheon. He also sees it as an example of the disparities in resources among Chicago schools, the gulf that exists between the haves and have-nots.

Cappleman noted that the Boys and Girls Club gym does not have an elevator, meaning that students without adequate access have to be carried up and down its stairs.The school’s new gym would be linked to the main school and would have an elevator.

A new gym for McCutcheon could also be used for after-school and weekend programs for the community, funded by a five-year state grant the school has already been awarded, Kram said.

“I will push and push to have this gym,” Cappleman said.

Castlewood Terrace once connected Marine Drive on the east to Sheridan Road on the west. But now, access to Sheridan is cut off and a large patch of green space forms a dead end at the western end of Castlewood, with the school to the north and the Boys and Girls Club to the south.

Kuske argued that putting the gym in the middle would rob the historic block of its green space. Cappleman said people often sleep or litter in the grass, so the gym would displace those problems.

But not everyone on Castlewood is against the gym, and not all McCutcheon parents think it’s what the school needs.

Down the block from the school, Phil Torres took a break from mowing his lawn to talk about why he’s on the fence about the gym. He’s not in favor of the plans he’s heard, but he’s not entirely opposed to the idea more generally and said he needs more information.

“I think kids deserve a place to play,” Torres said. “Everybody deserves a nice safe place to play that they can get to. So I don’t have any issue with the sentiment, that they want a nice gym.”

Torres, whose children are in high school and did not go to McCutcheon, said he and others on the block are concerned the gym would signal an end to the contract between the school and the Boys and Girls Club, taking away from its budget.

“That would be a meaningful hit to the Boys and Girls Club that really plays an important anchor role for the community,” Torres said.

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In a prepared statement, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago said that while it’s “always mindful of resources, our first and foremost concern is the youth we serve.”

Angie Doss, the parent of a McCutcheon first-grader, said she’d rather see other investments in the school before the district spends $10 million from its capital budget on a gym. The school has more urgent needs, she said.

“I think they should put the funding in the school, doing the after-school programs,” she said. “They don’t have a tutor there. And they should have a tutor for all ages in that school.”

Melanie Velez, whose fourth grader and kindergartner go to McCutcheon, has also served on the local school council. The family moved to Uptown a few years ago because of its diversity and chose McCutcheon for similar reasons, along with changes Kram was making at the school.

She found out McCutcheon didn’t have a gym when her son, who is active and loves to play sports, started telling her about the walks to the Boys and Girls Club, and the times they didn’t go because of the weather. Sometimes, students from low-income families didn’t have warm enough coats, she said.

“There were times when they couldn’t go and they would be in their classrooms,” Velez said. “We had come from a school that did have a gym, so when he wasn’t able to, he was disappointed.”

Christopher White’s 7-year-old son, a McCutcheon first grader, has Down syndrome. White worries about him wandering off or getting left behind on the way to and from the club, and about the school day being disrupted by the time it takes to don winter gear and walk back and forth to the gym. There’s also a sense of pride students could feel if their basketball team got to play on their own court, like most other schools.

Not having a gym in the school building, White said, is “like not having a cafeteria. … It just doesn't make sense they don’t have one.”

Velez and White both said some students don’t feel as comfortable at the club as at their own school.

“The school having something they can call theirs and be excited and be proud of is very important,” Velez said. “This would mean something for them. They can say hey we have a new gym, I want to play basketball, I want to play soccer.”

She called the resistance from the Castlewood group “heartbreaking,” noting that gentrification in the area is already making it harder for families to stay in the neighborhood.

“There’s an elementary school, there’s children here every day, why not give them a place?” Velez said. “I think the pushback, I guess it is a bit selfish. I think (the homeowners) are thinking about their benefit of not having it there, instead of helping the community.”